People I Want to Punch in the Throat

by Jen Mann

  “If you’re not committed, you’re never going to make it anyway,” said the woman behind me. “Ms. Tiffani-Anne only wants committed children and mommies. Sounds like you’re not committed.”

  “I should be committed! I’m fucking crazy. She’s three. Do you know what I did in the summertime when I was three? I swam with floaties and rode my Big Wheel. That’s it. Nope, I’m done. Good luck, ladies.” And with that I stepped out of line and the group surged to fill my hole.

  “Jen!” called Melody. “There are only a couple more hours left. I thought you wanted this for Adolpha.”

  “Where’s her mental toughness?” whispered Rose.

  “She has none. She never danced,” Lori whispered back.

  I stepped away and looked at the line snaking through the parking lot. I wanted to scream: Why the fuck are we doing this? Are we afraid they’re going to fall behind in the world of dance and soccer and pizza making and miming? We talk a lot about camps broadening their minds and teaching them things like responsibility and leadership skills, but really I think most moms are using those four hours a day to just be alone. I think we’re afraid of the idea of spending all day with our kids.

  I realize parenting is hard and boring at times and a four-hour break would be super, but this is the job we signed up for. Some days it sucks, but most days it’s great. I like my days when my kids are in school, but I also like my summers with them. I like going to the pool and bowling and traveling with them. I also like sending them to their rooms for an hour to read—I’ve got to get my reading time in, too!

  So while I might not have the mental tenacity to stand in line for three hours in January, I do have the mental tenacity to get through a summer with my kids.

  I’ll admit that when Gomer started kindergarten he was a bit sheltered. Okay, he was a lot sheltered. He still let me pick out his clothes every day, I was known as “Mommy,” he slept with a blankie that he called “munga-munga” (don’t ask—I have no idea where that name came from), and his best friend was his baby sister.

  (Actually, now that I reread that paragraph, not much has changed now that Gomer is eight. I still pick out his clothes, mostly because he’s too lazy to decide what to wear and/or he would choose shorts every single day regardless of the weather, munga-munga is somewhere in his bed and I’m pretty certain he snuggles with it when no one is watching, and his sister is still his best friend. The part that has changed the most is the fact that I’m no longer “Mommy.” I’d settle for “Mom,” but instead, I’m usually “dude.” WTF?)

  He’d been out in the real world for a couple of years at preschool, but preschool, aside from a few potentially racist games, was a sheltering environment, where he was adored, loved, and coddled like a prized calf. That kid was so soft, he would cry out of sympathy if his sister got into trouble.

  The Hubs and I knew kindergarten would be a bit of an adjustment for him. We knew that suddenly he would be forced to share space with twenty-plus kids and (gasp) only one teacher. We knew there would be some tough days for him. We just never thought he’d get the shit beaten out of him.

  The first week of school, I was putting Gomer to bed and I asked about his day. “It was awful, Mommy,” he sobbed. “I got attacked on the playground!”

  “What?” I asked, my mind racing. Who attacked my precious baby? I’ll kill that kid! “Who attacked you, Gomer?”

  “Agnes,” he whimpered.

  Agnes! Of course! Oh, I knew who Agnes was. I’d been warned about her on the first day of school.

  I had just dropped off Gomer in his new classroom when I stopped to say hello to my friend Sandy in the hallway. As I was catching up Sandy on my family’s scintillating summer vacation in Branson (don’t judge—my kids think Branson is just as good as Disney), we saw Agnes dart out of the classroom to grab a drink from the water fountain.

  “Hey, Agnes,” the teacher called. “Please come back in here. We don’t leave the room without permission, please.”

  “I’m sorry. I was thirsty!” Agnes said, never moving from her position by the water fountain.

  The teacher ducked back into the classroom and Agnes stayed put, kicking the wall. Then she reached up and ripped the picture from the Very Hungry Caterpillar bulletin board. The caterpillar’s red head drifted to the floor, where Agnes ground it into the carpet with her tennis shoe.

  What the hell, kid? I wondered. You’d better get your butt back in the classroom before you get in big trouble.

  “Agnes?” The teacher popped her head out again.

  Agnes instantly straightened up and smiled while covering the obliterated caterpillar head with her shoe. “Yes, ma’am?”

  “Are you coming, dear?”

  I thought, What’s with all the questions? Just tell her to move it.

  “In a minute,” she said. In a minute? Are you allowed to say that to a teacher now? Agnes turned her attention back to the bulletin board. She started digging a hole in the cork.

  “Oh, it’s a good thing I’m not a teacher,” I mumbled to Sandy. “Can you still spank kids at school?”

  Sandy giggled, and the teacher frowned at her. “Excuse me,” Sandy said, looking at her feet.

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” said Agnes.

  “Okay, but hurry up,” the teacher said. She went back in the room.

  Sandy and I continued our conversation until we heard a scream from the girls’ room. A girl ran out clutching her bloody mouth.

  “What happened?” Sandy asked.

  The teacher ran out of the classroom. “What is going on out here?” she demanded as Agnes exited the bathroom and took a real interest in washing her hands in the community sink between both bathrooms. I kept an eye on Agnes as she soaped up.

  “She pushed me into the wall and my tooth fell out,” the girl wailed, pointing at Agnes, who continued to scrub up like she was going into surgery.

  “Who, me?” Agnes asked innocently. “I didn’t push you. The floor was slippery. I actually slipped earlier. I was going to tell you, but you fell before I could. Good news is, the tooth fairy will come tonight.”

  The injured girl actually smiled. Whoa, this kid is good.

  “I will let the janitor know there is a slick spot in there. Sally, you may go see the nurse. Agnes, are you coming?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I was just trying to fix this bulletin board.”

  “Oh, you’re such a sweet girl,” the teacher said, giving Sandy and me a smile that said, Isn’t she precious?

  Sandy coughed into her hand, and it sounded a lot like she said, “Devil,” but I can’t be certain.

  The teacher said to Agnes, “I worked for hours on that bulletin board. It’s always so sad when they get wrecked. I was hoping it would at least last the week. Oh well, come in now, dear. I’ll stay after school today and fix it.” She went back in the classroom.

  “You wrecked it,” I said to Agnes as she sauntered past me.

  I looked helplessly at Sandy. She coughed again. “Jerk.” This time I heard her clearly.

  “No. It was already ripped when I found it. I just brushed into it and then it ripped some more. It was an accident,” Agnes said, looking at me with giant doe eyes. “Especially when this part fell off.” She held up two mangled green construction paper pears.

  “Come along, Agnes,” the teacher called.

  “Coming, ma’am. This strange lady was talking to me and I was telling her that I’m not allowed to talk to strangers,” Agnes said as she ran into the classroom, stuffing construction paper down her skort.

  The teacher looked at us sternly. “Ladies, the bell has rung. It might be better to take your conversation to the parking lot so you don’t disturb the students.”

  I just got scolded by a teacher! Are you joking? That kid set me up.

  “I’m not a stranger,” I said. “I’m Gomer’s mother. They’re classmates. Agnes is treating me like I tried to lure her into my van with candy or a puppy!”

  “We take
stranger danger very seriously in this school. If she was uncomfortable with your attention, she has every right to say so. And because you are a classmate’s mother, you should know better than to make her afraid,” the teacher replied coldly.

  “But she ruined your bulletin board, and I’m pretty sure she pushed that kid,” I tried.

  “Excuse me?” the teacher said. “Children fall all the time at school. Bulletin boards get ruined. These are accidents. Agnes is a child. She is not malicious. She did nothing wrong. Now, you ladies … well, I believe the principal sent out an email asking all of the parents to leave the building by the last bell so that we can start our day of learning.”

  “That kid is a mess,” Sandy muttered as we walked toward the lobby of the school.

  “Do you know her?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Don’t you?” she asked.

  “No. I’ve never seen her before. I’ve met her mother at different things, but I haven’t had the pleasure of seeing her in action. She’s a bit of a handful, isn’t she?”

  “Ha! She’s worse than that. Is that Gomer’s classroom?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ooh, sorry to hear that. She’s a real pain in the ass, but her mother is delightful—go figure.”

  “How do you know her?”

  “I told you about her. She’s the biter,” Sandy said.

  Last year Agnes was in preschool with Sandy’s daughter, Zara, and she’d had quite a few run-ins with her. She stole her snack for several weeks, and then when Zara finally told on her, she started kicking her on the playground. Sandy set up an appointment to meet with the school director and the teacher to discuss the problem. They mentioned then that they’d had several complaints about Agnes for kicking, hitting, and pinching but that that no one on staff had ever seen her do anything like that. The teacher went on and on about what a wonderful woman her mother was and how she couldn’t possibly be as bad as everyone claimed. She even suggested that maybe, just maybe, the other kids in the class were jealous of Agnes and were making up stories about her. They basically called Zara a liar. Sandy was livid, but there wasn’t much she could do. She told Zara to stay away from her, but then one day during rest period Agnes bit her. She bit her so hard she bled. Zara woke up and saw it was Agnes clamped down on her arm like a rabid dog, but by the time the staff got there, Agnes was back in her bed pretending to be asleep. Sandy could never prove it was Agnes, but she pulled Zara out of school after that.

  The biter. Her?

  I thought about Agnes. She was a tiny little thing, barely bigger than my preschooler. But her reputation was huge. I had always assumed she was a hulking brute with a skull-and-bones tattoo on her biceps and the rasp of a smoker. This little girl had pigtails, a button nose, and an adorable lisp that was exaggerated by her two missing front teeth.

  Sandy wasn’t the only one who’d had problems with Agnes. Although I’d never seen the little terror in person, I’d heard so many stories about kids with broken arms, stitches, or black eyes. There was never enough proof to flat-out blame Agnes, but she was always conveniently close by when a child “accidentally” fell out of a tree house and broke an arm or when her next-door neighbor’s pit bull “escaped” from his enclosure to terrorize the block.

  The rumor around the carpool line was the principal didn’t know which class to put her in, because so many parents were upset with Agnes and they demanded that she not be in their child’s class. I didn’t even know you could do such a thing—those parents with older kids always know the loopholes. Now my kid was stuck with her!

  It was awkward, though, because everyone loves Agnes’s mom. With her witty sense of humor and friendly personality, she’s a favorite at her neighborhood Moms’ Night Out or her exclusive invitation-only book club. Everyone—myself included—wanted to be her friend.

  “Well, maybe she’s not so bad,” I said hopefully, trying not to think about Sally’s prematurely lost tooth and my name lingering on the wait list for Agnes’s mother’s book club.

  “She—and her mother—have everyone snowed. She’s the first to volunteer at any classroom party to bring a healthy snack that the kids will actually eat. She’s always got great ideas for a game or a craft to keep them occupied during the party. She’s happy to volunteer whenever you need her. Librarian needs help reshelving books? She’s on it. Reading specialist needs someone to listen to the kids read out loud? No problem. Janitor needs help cleaning the urinals? It’s not something she’s used to doing, but she’s happy to help! And don’t forget: that kid accused you of stranger danger. That’s a big deal around here.”

  Oh yeah. What was that all about? What the hell, Agnes? That shit is serious, kid. This was my first year in the school; can you imagine what would happen to me if that story got started? With a stranger danger strike against me, I’d never get to be a room mom.

  “She’s a little shit. She pushes their buttons. Watch out for her,” Sandy advised me. “The upside, though, is if Agnes beats up your kid, you get a nice gift. I love my planter.”

  Soon after Zara started at her new school, Sandy told me, a planter and a gift basket arrived on Sandy’s porch. They were from Agnes’s mom. The basket was full of all kinds of cool shit that Sandy would never buy herself and a gift card for a massage. It’s kind of Agnes’s mom’s MO. She never admits her guilt, but the gift basket is a kind of apology for when Agnes hurts your kid. Everyone knows it. Just about every house on Sandy’s block has a beautiful planter on the porch. One neighbor even has a new cherry tree, because Agnes chopped hers down on President’s Day after she studied George Washington. “She has such a love of American history!” was what her mother said as she wrote the check for the tree.

  From that day forward I started to keep an eye on Agnes, just like Sandy had suggested.

  I didn’t see much out of the ordinary. She pulled a lot of Eddie Haskell shit when I worked in the classroom: “You look very nice today, ma’am.” “Thank you for volunteering in our classroom today.” “I’m so happy you’re here today!”

  I wanted to say, Cut the crap, kid. I’m a tired thirty-seven-year-old woman in mom jeans. Even my husband doesn’t think I look nice today.

  Although Agnes was smarmy and seemed poised to have an excellent career in sales and/or politics, I had never witnessed her being violent, so it did surprise me when Gomer said Agnes had “attacked” him. Maybe Gomer felt attacked by Agnes’s bullshit. I know I did.

  “What did Agnes do to you?” I asked Gomer.

  “I told you. She attacked me,” Gomer sniffled.

  “But how did she attack you? Did she bite you?” I asked, thinking of Zara.

  “She punches me at recess. She does it when the teachers aren’t looking.”

  “Well, did you tell your teacher?”

  “No! I can’t! Agnes says, ‘Snitches get stitches.’ That means if you tattle you get hit harder.”

  WTF, where did that come from? Agnes didn’t get that from Nickelodeon. “Yes, I know what that means.”

  “Well, I didn’t. I had to ask Agnes, and she punched me again while she told me. Just like she does every day!”

  Every day, and I was just now hearing about this?

  Now, at this point you might think I’m a terrible mother, because I’m not freaking out and calling the school and Agnes’s mother and filing a restraining order against the little asshole. But you must understand: Gomer has an overactive imagination. Oh, screw it, let’s be honest—Gomer can be a big fat liar.

  You must proceed with extreme caution when Gomer tells you a story about school, because you’re never quite sure if it’s true or not. I’ve been burned a few times now by flying off the handle and assuming that my precious baby was telling me the God’s honest truth, only to find out he’d pieced together several episodes of Wonder Pets and The Backyardigans to create his epic tale of woe. (This should probably be a lesson for me to pay more attention to what he’s watching on TV, but then what’s the point of plopping him in
front of the TV to use it as a babysitter if I have to sit there, too? Duh.)

  Honestly, if Sandy hadn’t told me to keep an eye on Agnes, I probably would have called Gomer a liar and said goodnight. But I’d seen the stitches on that snitch Zara.

  “Okay, Gomer. Don’t worry. Daddy and I will take care of it.”

  I tucked him in and then went downstairs to figure out what to do.

  I was hesitant to contact Agnes’s mother, because it could easily spiral out of control and I can only imagine how that conversation might go:

  Jen: Hi, this is Jen, Gomer’s mom. Listen, I was talking to Gomer tonight and he mentioned that Agnes has been punching him several times a day.

  Agnes’s mom: Oh, Jen, I’m actually glad you called.

  Jen: You are? Great. I’d love to get this worked out between the two of us so they could be friends. [To myself I’m saying, I am a parenting genius! In a year, when we’re all best friends, we’re going to laugh about this story.]

  Agnes’s mom: Yes, I’m glad you called, because I’ve been hesitant to contact you. Apparently Gomer has taught Agnes the word “fuck” and now we can’t stop her from using it all the time.

  Jen: Wait. What? I’m shocked. Gomer doesn’t even know that word.

  Agnes’s mom: Well, of course he does. He taught it to Agnes.

  Jen: No, I’m sure he didn’t.

  Agnes’s mom: Look, I’ve read your blog, and I know you use that word allll the time. [Okay, I think, we are not going to laugh about this story.]

  Jen: Yeah, but—

  Agnes’s mom: I realize you think it’s funny for a six-year-old to say “fuck,” but I really don’t.

  Jen: Hold on. I don’t think that’s funny. Honestly, I don’t use that kind of language in front of my kids. I really don’t.

  Agnes’s mom: Look, I try not to judge other people’s parenting, but I would have to say you are really terrible at it. You use that word all the time, and you probably use it when you’re talking to Gomer.